We're horrified by any derivation from our democratic process, but with the elderly vote becoming ever more influential to our political system, when will it be time that something is done to save the progressive voice of politics?

The moment I found out I was expecting my first child, my life changed forever. Nothing was going to be the same ever again. It couldn't be taken back and even if the pregnancy hadn't gone through, I still would have remained changed. This much I knew.

I am the luckiest person in the world. I have an adoring partner whom I love with all my heart and two beautiful children, no financial worries to speak of. And yet I am finally facing facts. It's scary and it's shameful. I am admitting in public that I don't like spending time with my children.

Before the end of the calendar year, the upper house of the Dutch Parliament will vote to outlaw religious slaughter on the grounds that it is inhumane - this despite not one reliable scientific study of the process.